


Hurts To Try, Hurts To Stop

by literallyjustanerd



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2019-11-07 13:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literallyjustanerd/pseuds/literallyjustanerd
Summary: I won't lie to you: this is an angsty drabble I wrote about my favourite boys being horribly hungover and lamenting mommy and daddy issues, in which neither Kurt nor Warren are lacking.





	1. Chapter 1

The air in Warren’s room is stale, and his lungs fill with a thick, stifling mustiness when he inhales. Head swimming through last night’s beer, he is dragged unwilling from the comforting emptiness of sleep, thrust back into the dull, thudding roar of reality, groaning and reeling and squinting his eyes shut. He has little more than a moment to try and think before he feels something ungodly bubbling up from deep within him, and when he leans forward over the side of his bed, he manages to choke up a good deal of second-hand, second-rate booze. Still woozy, he is only dimly able to wonder how the waste bin that catches most of the putrid mixture got there. A clumsy hand fumbles for his nightstand, catching wood after a few attempts. Vague memories return, a leaky faucet drip-feeding him disordered, nonsensical fragments one or two at a time. The clink of shot glasses. A giddy laugh that fills him with dizzying contentment. A chord struck on an electric guitar. Lips against his, warm and graceless and desperate. Quickly finding the prospect of standing an insurmountable task, Warren allows himself to fall back onto the bed, his head sending him a fresh wave of agony as it hits the pillow, wings crushed uncomfortably at odd angles underneath him. More shards of memory circle him, enveloping him as he sinks back into the void.

When he next wakes, he finds the world a little easier to bear. The scents of citrus and chemicals fill his nostrils, eyes opening to see that the waste basket of the unspeakable has been removed, the carpet underneath damp and scrubbed vigorously, the majority of the stain scraped away. Presently, as he frowns down at the faint splotch, a glass of cool liquid finds its way into one hand, the other pried open by steady fingers and a pair of pills placed on his clammy palm. The same fingers then move slowly up to his face, sweeping stringy, sweaty blond curls to the side and pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.  
“Drink. You need water.”  
He obeys without hesitation, downing half the glass before heaving his head up to meet his rescuer’s eye. Kurt is looking worse for wear himself, hair a mess, yellow eyes missing their usual gleam, still clothed in last night’s shirt and jeans. Warren catches the man’s hand as it retracts from his cheek, pressing his lips to the blue skin and smiling weakly. He still feels, to put it most simply, like absolute shit, but the sight of that tired face smiling back at him makes everything alright, if just for a moment before his throbbing head interrupts.

Hours pass in silence, slow and sluggish and sleepy. Kurt has found his place beside Warren, lying on his back, chest-to-chest with Warren. Idle fingers trace abstract shapes into the small of Warren’s back, while his tail curves up from beneath him, straightening the feathers of his wings one by one. It takes Kurt a moment to gather himself when Warren speaks, pulled out of his stagnant thoughts.  
“How did you… when I woke up,” he mumbles, unable to find the words to finish his question. Nonetheless, Kurt seems to get the message.  
“Knew you’d need to throw up sometime in the night,” Kurt answers simply. “Figured I should be ready for it. Save some awful cleanup.”  
“But you still had to—”  
“It was nothing. I couldn’t get all of it, but I think it’ll dry up okay.” He shifts his weight on the bed, groaning softly. “How are you feeling? Any better?”  
“I’ll be fine,” Warren dismisses. “Back to normal by tonight. You?”  
“Just tired more than anything. It was a late one.”  
Warren makes a noncommittal humming noise, letting his arms tighten around the man beneath him, comforted to find lean, supple muscle under his fingers.

“Shouldn’t’ve gone out,” he mutters, not to Kurt, nor to himself in particular. “Shouldn’t’ve dragged you with me. Shouldn’t’ve left the house at all…”  
“It’s alright,” Kurt soothes. “It wasn’t all bad. You weren’t feeling good last night, you just wanted a good time.”  
“I wanted a distraction,” comes Warren’s steadfast correction. “I wanted to forget.” A long pause, muscles instinctively tensing, holding Kurt even closer. “Wanted everything to go away.”  
“I know,” the voice below him whispers, chest rumbling with the words. Warren finds himself suspended in Kurt’s silence, leaning into his breath as it leaves his lungs. “I suppose I should have seen it, stopped you before it got too bad. I’m sorry I didn’t.”  
Warren shakes his head against the cloth of Kurt’s shirt.  
“Not your fault. You just thought we were going out for fun.”  
“…Some of it was fun, at least. We had some laughs.”  
“Yeah? Good. Glad my breakdown had an upside.”  
“I didn’t mean—”  
“I know. Came out harsher than I meant it. Sorry.”

*****

“Are you going to tell me what your dad said this time?”  
It’s dark outside now, crickets chirruping in the grassy fields outside the mansion. The air is fresher, feels better with the window open, a crisp evening breeze streaming in like light into a darkened room. The couple are working through a pizza, and Warren pauses mid-bite to contemplate Kurt’s question, finally nodding his head as he swallows.  
“Yeah, I guess. If you want to know.”  
“Of course I do. You know you feel better when you share.”  
He sighs heavily, reluctantly, but he can’t deny that Kurt is right. He hates it when Kurt is right, especially when it means having to spill his innermost thoughts and feelings like some corny after-school special. As much as he loves Kurt for helping him, for forcing him up and prying him out of bed and drawing blood from a stone by making Warren open up, it still doesn’t come as easy to him as he wished it would.

“The basic gist was the same as always,” he says, his tone almost bored but for the slightest hint of bitterness. “Nobody was ready to see a mutant Worthington, you should have just hid them forever and pretended to be a pretty little Homo Sapiens. And—” He freezes, lifting his eyes from his slice of pepperoni to meet Kurt’s gaze. “And there was some stuff about you.”  
“About me? But—”  
“Someone posted a photo of us online. Got back to him somehow.”  
“Oh…”  
The sound of Kurt’s voice, heavy with guilt and shame, fills Warren with a seething, white-hot rage.  
“Hey,” he says roughly. “Hey. Don’t you dare feel bad about this. He’s the only asshole here, okay? It’s all him. The homophobia, the mutophobia, all of it.”  
Kurt nods vaguely, stiffly, eyes glazed over. He knows he shouldn’t feel this way, feel responsible for the tumultuous and deeply unhealthy relationship Warren has with his family, but some small part of him always persists, whispers keenly to him that things might be easier for his Angel if he’d never come along to complicate matters even more than they already were.  
“Are you still working on trying to cut ties?” he asks, instead of dealing with his own roiling emotions. Warren senses the need to change the subject and obliges.  
“Yeah. It’s just… hard. Accepting that he’s never gonna be satisfied.” He sniffs derisively, eyes cloudy as he reaches for another slice from the box between them. Suddenly restless, he stands, shaking out his wings with a flutter like a peacock preening. In the back of Kurt’s mind echoes the same thought he has whenever he sees Warren’s wings in their full radiant, elegant beauty: how could anyone hate something so amazing? Warren’s feet move without a destination until he finds himself perching on the windowsill, drawing in a lungful of clean night air. “Part of you always hopes there’s something you can do to just… I dunno, ¬force him to change.” The formless colours in the distance out the window slowly shift to form a line of trees as his eyes adjust, then blur again just as quickly with an unexpected wave of tears. “I know he never will. It’s never going to make sense to him to just love me more than he fears what people think.”

A heaving breath shudders past his lips. He tries to piece together another sentence, but the knot in his throat has choked him off. Mercifully, Kurt’s voice rises to fill the cavernous silence.  
“I know how you feel,” he murmurs. “I know what that’s like. Wanting so desperately for everything to be like it should be. Wishing you could even be what they wanted. Even though you know what they want is wrong.” He speaks like a prayer, intoning each word carefully and deliberately. Warren sees the glint in his eye, knows just what the distinctive quirk in Kurt’s lips and catch in his throat means.  
“Mystique,” Warren breathes, not a question and not an accusation, but Kurt nods his confirmation all the same.  
“…Family sucks ass, huh?”  
And suddenly, there it is. The high, twinkling laugh that erases the hurt in Warren’s chest, fills him with warm, soft relief. Kurt’s eyes wrinkle when he shuts them, tears pushed from the corners of his eyes down his cheek. He sniffles, raises his head. His tail sweeps across the carpet and catches the side of Warren’s leg, snaking under the cuff of his sweatpants and gliding up and down the skin of his calf. The smile that graces his lips reaches all the way to his eyes, weak as it is.  
“Not the family you choose.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More angst, this time with added fluff! Warren has trouble separating himself from things that damage him, and Kurt can't worry from a distance.  
> Written mostly to soothe and distract from my own raging anxieties tbh.

Angsty Drabble 2

 

            Kurt’s tail twitches restlessly over the bedroom carpet as he checks his phone for the third time in ten minutes. The screen is clear of any new messages, and he can see his wallpaper in full: his bright grin as Warren kisses his cheek, both of them bathed in the bright neon of the lights in their favourite restaurant. There is a sharp hiss as he sucks a breath in through his teeth, foot tapping in disquiet against the floor. Three text messages now, and two calls, all unanswered. He’d woken up alone, his back cold and missing the press of Warren’s chest against it. He knows what this means, exactly why Warren hasn’t answered.

First, the unassuming ‘ _good morning xx_ ’ text, then the less optimistic ‘ _where did you go?_ ’ ending in a final, resigned, ‘ _please don’t see him tod_ ay. _’_ He isn’t surprised that Warren has gone back to see his father, to endure another day of abuse, but the lack of surprise doesn’t come with a lack of disappointment. There is even a slight twinge of frustration bubbling deep in the pit of his stomach—the faintest rumble of thunder from an incoming storm.

 

            He jumps when Scott appears next to him, asking what Kurt’s frown is for. Kurt, as ever, dismisses it with a shake of his head, shoulders shifting with his sigh.

“It’s okay. It’s nothing,” he says. But Scott has had years to get to know Kurt, to come to recognise the slight shake in his voice and the quirk in his lips. Not to mention he has come to feel somewhat protective of Kurt, especially since he knows just the kind of grief Warren is capable of giving. He says nothing, but keeps his gaze through his glasses trained intently on Kurt. The lie withers under this scrutiny, and Kurt cracks easily with it.

“Warren’s gone back to see his dad,” he begins, voice like that of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Their family has this… this big fancy lunch once a week, and Warren _always_ goes, and it _always_ ends in an argument and him feeling miserable.”

“And you’ve told him he shouldn’t be going?”

“Every time! And every time, he ends up back there.”

 

Scott sighs, leans back against the doorframe, and balls his hands in his pockets.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you. Aside from, you know, what I’ve already told you before.”

Kurt dredges up a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and forces himself to stand, patting Scott’s shoulder as he passes by into the hallway.

“I know, Scott. But he’s my boyfriend. We love each other, and we’re not breaking up.”

There comes an unconvinced shrug from behind him.

“Just saying. Still think you could do better than that hot mess.”

“ _Scott_.” There is a chuckle in Kurt’s voice, letting Scott know he has done his job. The pair together leave the bedroom behind, beginning the day a little late, but much better than if Kurt had been left to start it himself.

 

            “ _Sehr gut, jeder!_ That’s enough for today. You did wonderfully, I hope you had as much fun as I did!”

That is a lie. Kurt, in fact, hopes his students have had much more fun than he has. As the dozen or so young mutants he’d taken charge of that afternoon pass him towards the Danger Room’s exit, he once again is lost to his own thoughts, the unending debate that tugs at his mind.

It has been three months since he had put his name forward to handle a weekly Danger Room, and, overall, he has relished the experience. The students had taken a shine to him straight away, and the chance to share and teach his skills had proven both heartening and cathartic. Today, however, not even the bright, fresh young faces of his newest pupils are enough to dissuade him from obsessing over Warren, who has still not made an appearance despite the day being all but over.

 

Once the students have drained from the hall completely, he follows them up from the basement levels of the school and begins towards the living room, hoping to find some conversation to smother his sorrows with. He passes by the window, the last dregs of twilight bleeding into night, the trees an inky black tide lapping at the horizon. Another silhouette catches his attention, this one wheeling high above the treeline. Though barely visible in the dim, Kurt knows the arc of those wings too well, in too much excruciating detail to mistake the shape for anything else. Any _one_ else. Warren is out there, and he is agitated. His movements lack their usual grace and fluidity. He flies with the air of a man being pursued, and this observation drives a deep unease into Kurt’s chest, like a splinter worming its way beneath its skin that he has no hope of removing. For a moment, all frustration about Warren’s disappearance and foolishness vanishes, replaced only by dread of what horrors the man has endured today at the hands of his parents. The thought stays with him for the rest of the evening, along with the question of when Warren will choose to end his self-inflicted purgatory in the skies and return to Kurt’s waiting arms.

 

The mansion is dark for the most part when Warren touches down on the front steps. As usual, the heavy, ancient oak door creaks maddeningly loud as he opens it, drawing a wince from the man as he slips inside and locks it behind him. There are people still awake, almost certainly, but the mansion is big enough, its halls long and winding enough that he is able to take himself to his room unseen with ease. But as he nears the door to his refuge, his dull footfalls are cut off. There is a soft, yellow light streaming through the crack underneath the door. _Shit._ He had been hoping to forgo this confrontation, stayed out until the cold turned his wingtips numb to avoid it. And, of course, with the heightened sense of hearing that comes with his boyfriend’s (frankly adorable) pointed blue ears, he has almost definitely already heard Warren approaching. Dread building to a crescendo in his stomach, Warren makes the final few strides to their bedroom and opens the door.

 

If it hadn’t been for the situation they were in, the sight of Kurt before him would have filled Warren with warmth, with the addictive calmness and security that Kurt usually provides him with, tense disagreements about family notwithstanding. He is sitting up in bed, curled up against the night’s chill with a book in his lap, rich blue fur bathed in the incandescent light of a bedside lamp. He looks to Warren expectantly when he enters the room, lips parting slightly and then pressing back together as if he had begun to speak and thought better of it. He has grown more adamant lately, more determined not to enable Warren’s more avoidant and self-destructive behaviours. The silence stretches on, fraying and thinning like an overtaxed rope until Warren finally gives in, words leaving his lips with such force that he almost lurches forward.

“It’s not that fucking easy, okay?” he blurts. “I can’t just cut him off whenever I feel like it. That’s not how it works.”

“I didn’t say it was,” replies Kurt, his tone earnest if somewhat dry, with just enough force in it to spark a fresh wave of frustration in Warren.

“But you think it, don’t you? You think I should be able to just snap my fingers and be totally done with him!”

 

An exasperated sigh from Kurt has Warren feeling like a child again, scolded by a parent, a relative, a teacher, and infuriated by their condescension.

“You do!” he snaps before Kurt has gotten a single word out. The interruption causes Kurt to frown deeply, peeling back the covers and standing up with as much composure as he could muster.

“Is it so bad that I want you to get rid of the single worst influence in your life?”

“He’s my dad.”

“He’s said _horrible_ things to you! He says them every time you see him! Homophobic things, mutophobic things. The number of times you’ve come home in tears because of him… He’s an awful, bigoted, ignorant man and you don’t deserve to have that in your life!”

“It’s more complicated than that! He’s really shitty to me, yeah, I’ll give you that. But he’s my dad. He’s _family_. And I keep thinking, I don’t know, maybe if I give him enough time... Look, I can’t just— If I tried to—” The words dry up in his mouth as quickly as they had come rushing to his mind, his building agitation tearing an animalistic growl from deep within his throat.

“I _know_ how impossible it seems to give up on the idea of things getting better.” Kurt’s voice is a warning, stepping closer to Warren like a lion tamer, fighting his own anger as it tries to leap up in response to his partner’s. “Trust me, I know. I’ve been through it before. Which means I also know what I’m talking about when I say that taking the plunge and making the tough choices makes _everything_ easier in the long run.”

 

            The words make sense. They sound perfectly reasonable. And this, more than anything, is what angers Warren the most. These perfect, reasonable words coming from a perfectly reasonable man, so well-adjusted and put-together and so fucking _adult._ The affront of having his own misjudgements and insecurities laid out for him is almost too much for him to bear, and it only hurts more that despite knowing deep down that Kurt is right, he cannot stop his own feelings. Even with full awareness of the problem, he is powerless to unravel it.

“He’s my _dad,_ ” he snarls, gaze affixed firmly to the floor, hot, shameful tears pricking the backs of his eyes.

“And? My father is a literal biblical demon! And my mother is… well, my mother.”  
“That’s different. You had Margali. You had your family in the circus.”  
“Until I came here. Then, I had a mother who couldn’t figure out whether she was evil or not and a father who wanted to use me and all my other half-demon siblings to tear a hole in the underworld.”

His breath trembles as he steps forward, catching Warren’s chin under one finger and raising it to meet his eyes. Through all his pent-up frustration, the anger and grief, he smiles. Meekly, faintly, but with enough tenderness to melt through all of Warren’s pride. In an instant, he is putty in Kurt’s hands once more, hanging precariously on the silence between them, desperate for shelter from the storm raging within him.

“But I also had the other X-Men. I had _you._ And whenever Mystique shows up, or I want to feel sorry for myself because of who my father is, I just remind myself that you guys are enough.” The tears are streaming freely down Kurt’s cheeks now, collecting in shivering droplets at his chin and falling onto Warren’s fingers, numb with the weight of all the emotions warring in his mind.

 

            Gradually, and then all at once, Warren is hit with an astounding exhaustion, one that reaches right to his bones. He gives in, gives up the reins he has clung so desperately to, and collapses into Kurt’s waiting arms. They catch him with all the strength in the world, holding his entire life afloat in their firm yet gentle grasp. Warren feels lips pressed against his ear, exults in the hot breath against his skin. The lips and the breath are accompanied by whispered words of comfort, reassurances and promises that everything would be okay. He loses himself to the simple, euphoric feeling—of being safe, of being loved, so absorbed in it that he cannot tell how much time has passed when Kurt lifts those wonderful lips from his ear, pressing them instead against Warren’s for just a moment before pulling back to gaze at Warren with searching eyes.

“I’m sorry I got so worked up,” he murmurs. “I just hate seeing you like this.”  
Warren nods, slow and short.

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry. I’m sorry, too.”

 

            Wordlessly, the two of them climb under the covers, retreating all too readily into a world much smaller than the one that had sparked the argument between them. Warren hesitates when he tries to speak, throat catching involuntarily, a remnant of his pride, though the night’s events have left it weakened enough that he can easily push past it.

“I’ll… I’ll work on talking to dad less,” he says, and Kurt can tell that the words are a promise. “I can stop going to so many family things, stop answering all his stupid invasive questions.”

Kurt nods, pausing reverently before he replies.

“I think that’s a good idea. Take it at your own pace. We’ll see how things go.”

Warren can’t do a thing to help the great swell of adoration he feels at seeing those big, thoughtful yellow eyes, the crease of his brow. He presses his head to Kurt’s chest, and even then he feels he cannot get close enough to the man he has fallen so achingly hard for. His wings sweep up and out, blanketing Kurt on both sides, movements as careful and covetous as if he were handling a rare and precious gem.

 

“Kurt?”

The blue mutant is almost dreaming when the voice stirs him, the rumble of the chest atop his rousing him back to consciousness.

“Mm?”

“Thank you. For sticking with me. Putting up with me.”

“I don’t put up with anything, _mein Engel_. I love you. I’ll always want to help you when you’re struggling.”

Warren inhales sharply, lips pressed tightly together.

“If either of us is anything close to an angel, it’s definitely you,” he says with the softest hint of a laugh, winding his arms tighter around the warmth of the body he has positioned himself against. Kurt says nothing, heart suddenly bounding with something unplaceable. The feeling stays with him until he loses himself to sleep, lulled into a deep, peaceful rest by the rhythm of Warren’s breaths against his fur.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked this weird little piece! Wrote it because I got an unexpected bout of 14-year-old angst at age 19, which is apparently a thing that can happen???  
> I'm kinda into it now, so let me know if you'd be interested in a continuation, with lots more romance, daddy issues, and maybe even some more intimate scenes.   
> Thanks for the read, and have a great day! :)


End file.
